"Meeting the Linguistic Needs of Adolescent Multilingual Writers for Academic Writing"

Doctoral student Undarmaa Maamuujav (first author, pictured left) and Professor Emerita Carol Booth Olson (pictured right) published a chapter in The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching. The chapter is titled "Meeting the Linguistic Needs of Adolescent Multilingual Writers for Academic Writing."  

Olson has expertise in academic writing, language arts, and adolescent literacy. She is PI on a five-year, $14.7 million EIR expansion grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help close reading and writing achievement gaps among high-needs students in grades seven to 11.

Maamuujav is a second-year doctoral student specializing in Teaching, Learning, and Educational Improvement (TLEI). Her research interests include writing and rhetoric, critical reading, genre analysis, academic writing, composition, second language writing and acquisition, and technology in writing and literacy development. She is advised by Olson.

Abstract

With a premium placed on academic writing, adolescent multilingual writers are expected to develop advanced skills to analyze, interpret, and produce complex texts in a variety of content areas. The higher‐order analytical thinking skills that are essential in academic writing require higher linguistic competency and academic language proficiency. However, developing writers and English learners often lack the linguistic competence and language knowledge, including syntactic fluency and lexical capacity, necessary to meet the demands of academic writing. A question of pedagogical import, then, is how instructional strategies can help adolescent multilingual writers to develop linguistic competency, and the language knowledge necessary to become competent and confident academic writers. This entry discusses the features of academic writing, the challenges multilingual writers face, and effective strategies to develop knowledge of and about academic language.